Her soft sobs, muffled by a handful of handkerchiefs, only amplified the emptiness of the house. Sharpened the cold edges of silence. He needed to be outside to keep his hands and mind busy. He needed to cover her sobs with the electric buzz of skill saw.
Outside, the saw sat in the corner of the shed dusted with yellow pollen. The dirtied orange extension cord was caked in cobwebs, which he knocked away as he unfurled its tangle. He kicked through scrap wood for a skinny piece of lumber and set the board across his work bench. The dulled teeth of the blade would still chew through the scrap. The cut made two pieces: The first measured two feet, the other four. The longer piece fell to the ground. He groaned as he lifted it from the dirt. Bits of debris fell from the scrap as he ran his sandpapered hands across the board.
The morning’s cool air had started to hide.
It took a moment of digging, but Mr. Oney found the flathead, a rusted piece of metal, which he used to pry open a paint can. He used it to mix and marry the stagnant separation of oil and pigment.
Fumbling again through trays, cups and buckets of neglected tools, he found the stiff paintbrush, its bristles petrified. He slapped the stiff brush against his workbench and forced the tips free with each strike.
He spread a smooth coat of paint over each board. From his blue lawn chair sat in the shade of a small persimmon tree, he waited for the paint to dry. The heat had claimed stake over the Louisiana morning, and he could tell it would rain as he swallowed thick air down his throat and chest.
Mrs. Oney, his wife of some 20 years, watched his movements through the kitchen window across the yard. Her eyes, lately hollowed and haunted, were fixed on his project.
After two coats of the white paint had dried, Mr. Oney took a smaller brush and dipped the pointed tip in a black jar. He relaxed, let the black run easy and fluid across the two-foot board. He leaned close; his hand moved deliberate and slow. When he made the last stroke, he stood back to judge his work. Jeremiah John Oney. He studied the words. The O in Oney was crooked, so he added more heft to the bottom of the shape.
Balancing the short board atop the longer one, he hammered rusted nails where the two boards met. He fastened the pieces tight until completely fused, fixed in the shape of a cross.
Satisfied with the final product, Mr. Oney wiped his brow with an old shop rag.
He could feel his wife’s stare from across the yard. She watched as he carried the cross in one hand and a flat edge shovel in the other to his truck. He set both in the bed. With another groan, he lifted himself in the F-150 and sat in the drive, idling, to see if she would come with. The cab of the truck was stuffed with humidity.
It wasn’t a far drive. Ten miles at most. The roads were sidelined by cotton, strawberry fields, overgrown grasses and abandoned silos. He had handled these flat floodplains for decades. He had made this drive during times of deluge and dark, in red-eyed mornings, pulling horse trailers, lost in thought, singing along to George Jones. He had avoided deer, hogs, black bears, coyotes, dogs and all sorts of varmint that crossed in the midnight headlight. He had often handled these roads with too much liquor in his blood.
He pulled his truck to the side of the road – there was plenty of room on the shoulder. No cars or trucks came from either direction, not many ever did.
He noticed the first dark cloud, damp enough to show the water it cradled.
He carried the cross and shovel a few yards from the truck. The spot was marked by a new stretch of fence. The bright green T-posts, set and sewn together with silver barbed-wire, shone in the glistening gray of April.
There was little need for the shovel. The earth was wet and pliable. He made a small dent in the soft grass, pushed the white cross into its hole and gave two quick taps on top with the shovel head. He packed some soil at the base and secured the footing with his boot heel. There was a bit of give when he tested the integrity of the planting, so he offered one more tap of the shovel to cure it of any wiggle. He thought of saying something but didn’t. Instead, he watched the ashen clouds drift from a row of Loblolly pines. The clouds felt like a shadow walking behind him all morning.
He tossed the shovel back into the bed and made a U-turn across the two-lane road without looking. The shovel slid across the bed of the truck from one wheel-well to the other – and that was the only commotion the drive would give. Soon, he was back in the driveway without issue.
Mr. Oney went in the house, now cavernous, oversized for its use. Waiting for him on the breakfast table was a hot cup of coffee and a slice of buttermilk pie – the pastor’s wife had left the pie on the doorstep days before. He sat at the table, swallowed the black drink and picked at the pie. Nothing tasted particularly special, but the hot coffee, which he didn’t mind even on a hot day, made him feel full. He set down the fork. It still held bits of crust in its grip.
Outside the kitchen window was a black cloud, this one darker from drinking all the bayou and swamp it could find. Mr. Oney took his coffee, walked to the window and watched it approach. He watched the sky sour and more black clouds come to shadow the ground below. He watched the first drop of rain slide down the windowpane.